Public Forums Will Focus on Future of Tisbury School

Tisbury will take up a range of renovation options for the town’s outdated elementary school building at public meetings next week.

Options on the table include renovating the school with or without an addition or demolishing and rebuilding the school at the existing site, or relocating the school elsewhere.

Members of the community are invited to learn more and weigh in at community workshops on Monday, April 3 at 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the emergency services building.

The community forms are the next step in the Massachusetts School Building Authority grant program, which the town was invited to participate in last January. The program provides partial reimbursements to schools upgrading their facilities.

Built in 1929, the Tisbury Elementary School is the oldest elementary school building on the Island. Space is an ongoing problem, and the school still uses modular buildings that were introduced as a short-term solution 15 years ago.

The town will now choose between a renovation, a renovation with an addition, or demolishing and rebuilding the school, all on the existing site at West William street, or moving the school elsewhere. Two other possible sites have been identified as the Manter well site off Holmes Hole Road or the Tashmoo well site off Spring street.

Amy Houghton, a representative from the school building committee, told town selectmen this week that the public information sessions will help guide the project forward.

“We’d like to have an opportunity for community members to come and weigh in and really understand the options and weigh the pros and cons of all five of those plans,” she said.

In other business this week, selectmen agreed to extend the license for Island Adventure moped rental company for one month as the town continues to examine moped regulations. A discussion of town moped regulations is scheduled for April 11.

Selectmen also heard preliminary plans from Ernie Boch Jr. to turn a waterfront property he owns on Beach Road into a park. The property at 20 Beach road used to house Hancock Hardware and Builders Inc. buildings. At the meeting Tuesday two representatives for Mr. Boch described plans for a grassy park with picnic tables and a boardwalk near the water.

The board approved creating a license agreement to relocate a sewer line running through the property to the edge of the land, though some community members expressed concern that the relocation would set up the property for further development down the line.

Selectman Tristan Israel said he was not concerned.

“This is a blighted piece of property that’s a private piece of property,” he said. “I’ve certainly had my battles with the Bochs on it over the years, but thank you...I think it will transform that area of town, and we really need it badly...if something nefarious down the road happens, I don’t think it will, fine, we have tools to deal with that.”

And a battle about the fate of two Bradford pear trees on Clough Lane came to an end as selectmen said they had no recourse to stop their removal.

Property owner Carol White, who has been building a guest house on her property near the trees, cited the odor the trees produce when they bloom and how easily they fracture as reasons for removal.

The deciduous trees with white flowers are part of a corridor of Bradford pear trees said to be planted by the town beautification committee in the 1970s.

Since December, selectmen had been searching for legal oversight that could prevent the removal the trees. On Tuesday, Department of Public Works director Ray Tattersall said that after speaking with several people at the state level, there was nothing the town can do to stop the removal of the trees.

“Everyone is on the same page that because there is no letter, there is no written documentation, they are not considered public shade trees,” he said.

Selectmen agreed that fastidious documentation and a review of their shade tree bylaw is in order for the future. They also agreed to reach out to the owner to talk about replacement trees.

“It’s a lesson learned and something we should remedy,” board chairman Melinda Loberg said. “I don’t imagine asking the person to replant trees will be useful or successful because clearly they don’t like the kind of trees there and if you plant different trees then it will ruin the whole effect in the first place.”